


Here Nothing Remains

by CatKing_Catkin



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Canon, Attempted Murder, BAMF Dorian, Betrayal, Blood, Blood and Injury, Broken Families, Canonical Character Death, Dorian Has Issues, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fights, Fix-It, Gen, Headcanon, Healing, Human Cole, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Injury Recovery, Learning to be Human, Major Character Injury, POV Cole (Dragon Age), POV Dorian Pavus, Protective Sera, Qun-Loyal Iron Bull, Strangulation, Talking, Team Bonding, Trespasser DLC spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-08
Updated: 2015-10-08
Packaged: 2018-04-25 09:28:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4955107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatKing_Catkin/pseuds/CatKing_Catkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I've been trying to imagine how to explain it to you, Cole. The thing is, sometimes the ones you love are also the ones who disappoint you the most. You think that if they love you, they should understand. They shouldn't want to hurt you."</p><p>Spoilers for a possible ending to the "Trespasser" DLC. </p><p>The Inquisitor made a good call in leaving Iron Bull behind in her race to stop the Viddasala's plot. But even if he's not in a position to immediately stab her in the back on his leader's command, Iron Bull is still prepared to make use of being left back at the Winter Palace for a few hours before revealing his true allegiances. A good spy makes use of whatever opportunities present themselves, for the sake of destabilizing an enemy and advancing the strength of the Qun.</p><p>Cole, unfortunately, presents the easiest target to start with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Here Nothing Remains

**Author's Note:**

> So this fic was born of me thinking...
> 
> It seems like most everyone who knew that Iron Bull was going to betray them left him behind on the mission to face the Viddasala. And that makes sense, from a gameplay perspective, because then you're at least still running the end of the mission with three teammates rather than two. 
> 
> But leaving Iron Bull behind means leaving a traitor at your base, among your team, for what must have been at least a few hours before the Viddasala called him in to "lend a hand". And someone like Iron Bull could cause a lot of trouble with a few hours to work with. 
> 
> Things spun out in a really, really horrible direction from there. 
> 
> Also, I basically ignored the whole ColexMaryden plot for this fic. Because I thought them being tossed together was really kind of random and silly. So don't expect any references to Maryden in this fic. Personally, I don't think it diminishes much.

The Inquisitor had found the path to chase, the path that would take her to the Viddasala and the end of her plans. But while she raced through the paths between spaces, over and under and through the Fade with Cassandra and Varric and Vivienne by her side, the rest were left behind to watch and wait. Most did more than simply wait – they held their breath with fear and doubt, looking this way and then that, trying to see past the eyes of the people around them. Who simply wanted to get through the night? Who wanted the dawn to bring a new order?

Cole found it easier not to worry about such things. He had spent a long while these past two years helping the Inquisition know who meant them well and who meant them ill. It was harder for him now than it had once been, and yet it was easier, because now it wasn't just a matter of looking and seeing but of knowing, understanding, putting reasons to words and words to reasons.

Still, not even the Inquisition could confront every double agent in the palace, and not even Cole could pick out one single whisper of dissent among many. Until those of his friends left behind had a better idea of what should be done, they were roaming through the cluster of buildings and stalls outside the Palace itself. They wanted to patrol. It was an attempt at a patrol.

But mostly, they tried to keep one another in sight, without making it obvious to themselves or one another that they were trying to. Cole had a slight advantage, because he was able to perch himself lightly on the awning over the tavern and watch them all.

Of course, that meant he could be watched in turn. He could be found, more easily than the rest. That was all right, of course. If they needed him for something, he wanted to be there. When they knew what to do, he wanted to do it. He wanted to help.

“Hey, kid. How's it looking up there?”

Cole looked down to see Iron Bull looking up. He paused for only a moment, trying to put the best words to the situation that he could find. That, at least, was slightly easier now. “Everyone is holding their breath. No one wants to breathe first.”

The warrior nodded his understanding. “One of those nights. I know the kind. Anyway, if you don't think anything's about to go to hell in the next few minutes, mind coming with me?”

“What's wrong?”

“Can you come down here for a minute, at least? I'd rather not shout it to the plaza”

Cole did so, deftly swinging his legs over the side and letting himself down carefully onto the cobbled tiles below. They were hardly alone, even now. They were surrounded by people, worriedly waiting because they didn't know which way to go, or else going anywhere rather than standing still and worrying. One thing Cole had come to understand, however, was that sometimes the best way to be alone was to be surrounded by people, especially when the people you were surrounded by were worried.

“What's wrong?” he repeated, now looking up at Iron Bull instead of down. That was rather more familiar.

“Maybe something. Maybe nothing. I'd rather get your take on it before worrying anyone else, or taking it to the boss.”

“All right.” Cole felt his heart starting to race a little faster. Whatever was going on, The Iron Bull didn't seem worried or upset, but something was still going on and that was enough to make Cole worry and wonder now. “Where is it?”

Iron Bull smiled, and patted Cole gently on the shoulder, offering reassurance without words. Cole smiled in return, feeling a little better. “Follow me,” his friend said, turning away and making his way through the crowds. Cole followed dutifully at his heels. He soon found himself more focused on staying close behind Iron Bull than paying attention to what route they took to do so, but it almost seemed as though the next thing he knew, they were on a higher level, up the stairs and away from the milling tangle of people down below. Terraces arched at eye level here, flowers twining around them, and even for Cole, the sound of worries and doubts and what-ifs were muted here by the sound of running water from the baths below. Iron Bull led Cole even further than that, to the delicate fencing that was all that stood between the terrace and the long fall to the plains below.

“Where is it?” Cole asked again. His voice was a little less steady than it had been the last time he had asked it. They were very far away from the others, and he couldn't see anything or anyone that might present a danger. Yet Cole knew better than most that it was often the dangers you couldn't see that were the most dangerous.

“Ta-da,” said Iron Bull, gesturing at a bundle of... _something_ in the shadows of the fountain. Taking the unspoken cue, Cole drew nearer and crouched down beside it. Even as he stared intently, picking up one of the long tubes to squint at in the dim light, he still didn't understand.

“ _What_ is it?”

“Fireworks, kid.” Iron Bull shooed him aside and then knelt down to sort through the tubes himself. He kept his voice low as he carried on. “I already knew there was a bundle left in the gardens on the other side of the grounds. Probably for some kind of party later. I _also_ know for a fact that these weren't here an hour ago. Someone moved them into position, and someone moved them somewhere that they wouldn't be easily found.”

“Why?”

Iron Bull jammed the tube into the ground, lit a match from a box hidden in the bundle, touched the tip to the end of the firework, and hustled Cole well back. The firework shot into the sky, higher and higher, Cole tipping his head back further and further to try and follow it. At last, it exploded with a loud crack and a shower of light in the sky far above, so that Cole found himself torn between the urge to cover his eyes and his ears at the same time and he didn't have enough hands.

“Because they make a damn good signal, that's why.”

Cole could feel his heart beating against his ribs, now. “Then didn't you just signal them?” Whoever “they” were, of course.

Iron Bull, however, nodded without any sign of distress. Cole tried to be reassured again. “Maybe. And if that wasn't the signal, they definitely know that their cache has been found. That's why we've got to move fast. Or, well, why _you_ have to move fast. You can see the emotions or the past around items, right?”

“Sometimes,” Cole answered cautiously. It was harder. Many things were.

“Good. Do that with the fireworks. Whoever left them here, it wasn't long ago. Maybe you can pick up a scent that I can follow for the kill.”

Cole didn't know if he could, but he did know that he could try. He nodded, said “All right”, and moved to kneel down by the fireworks once more. He closed his eyes, trying to leave himself more room to see with other senses, and tried to look _back_.

After what might have been minutes or moments, he found that there _was_ a thread he could reach out and stretch his grasp towards. Whoever had left these here had been mostly calm, but there had still been an undercurrent of fear – _what if they see, what if they find me_. He could feel the shape of their fears, and from there, all he had to do was find the face...

Cole was so focused looking everywhere but behind him that he didn't realize that Iron Bull was reaching out to him until the Qunari's long, strong fingers were already closing around Cole's throat.

“What...?”

Iron Bull said nothing. Everything next happened so very _fast_. Cole was yanked _around_ and slammed _back_ against the fountain, all without Iron Bull's grip faltering around his neck for even a moment. No, more than that, worse than that, his grip was _tightening._ He leaned forward, putting more of his weight on Cole, leaving less room between the boy and the fountain at his back and the Qunari trying to...to...

_Kill me._

_Trying to kill me he's trying to kill me he's killing me why why why forget forget forget..._

“Why...?” His voice was so quiet that Cole wasn't entirely certain that he'd really spoken. His hands, as they scrabbled for purchase, for relief, against Iron Bull's, felt as though they belonged to a stranger. Even through the thoughts chasing themselves faster and faster and _faster_ around his head through the fog closing in, he couldn't quite accept why that was.

Iron Bull said nothing. Hissrad said nothing. Cole _felt_ nothing. There was no hesitation, no doubt, no pity. Behind the Qunari's one eye was nothing to mark him as Iron Bull, as though his friend had just been switched off and put away.

_Stop stop please dizzy help why..._

“Stop it!”

His voice? Not his voice. Couldn't speak couldn't breathe couldn't see couldn't _stop, please stop_...

“Friggin' _stop it!”_

Pressure gone. Body taking over. Breathe, _breathe_ , and feel the world rushing back like a tide and blink it into focus.

Iron Bull had staggered back, cradling one of his hands. It had been pierced through by an arrow, fletched with red feathers. Cole only had a moment to process this much, however, before a blur dashed between him and his attacker.

“What the _hell_ are you doing?!” his savior cried out. Cole tasted her fear and confusion and distress as though they were his own. They might have been. It wasn't often that he and Sera were so closely aligned in mind and heart.

Iron Bull's bared teeth flashed in the moonlight. “ _Not_ a good time, Sera.”

And then he lunged for her. Sera let out a piercing yelp and danced aside, reaching down to grab Cole's hand and drag him clear at the last minute. Iron Bull collided with the fountain hard enough to send brick dust flying, but straightened up in a blur of muscles and strength.

“Run! Frigging _run_ , Cole!”

He was on his feet. Cole didn't remember getting to his feet, he barely remembered being dragged to his feet. Running should have been easy from there. Running. To people. Even if Iron Bull chased them, even he couldn't kill everyone. Wouldn't kill everyone. Would he?

Sera's hand was no longer in his, though he felt her just a few paces behind and Iron Bull a few paces more. Her bowstring sang out, a sound shortly followed by the clash of steel on steel. Footsteps pounding after them as they all raced towards the stairs down to the rest of the world. “Have some bees!” Sera snarled, and Cole heard glass smashing and bees buzzing. He could only hear, he couldn't see, because some sense buried deep at the base of his spine – more than human, more than him – told him that if he looked back, he was lost.

Unfortunately, that meant that even if he heard the sound of the grappling chain being swung hard through the air, being let fly, he didn't know where it was being aimed until his leg exploded with pain. Cole cried out with it, and he wanted to keep running, he _wanted_ to, but his body wouldn't listen, his leg folded under him instead and left Cole collapsing painfully to the ground.

“ _No!”_ Sera yelled. He didn't remember the last time he'd heard her so scared.

Cole did look back, then. He was already lost. The sight he saw should not have been a surprise, but he still felt his stomach lurch and twist with nausea at the sight of the grappling hook. Like so many of Iron Bull's enemies before him, it had gone straight through his leg and hooked on the other side.

And just like so many of Iron Bull's enemies before him, the Qunari started to reel him in with the unhurried patience of a man who knew exactly what was going to happen once he did. He was strong, and Cole was not, Cole was slight and small and bleeding and _weak_. He felt himself being dragged along the ground, over dirt and cobblestones, and his fingers scrabbled desperately for something to hold on to. Cole was whimpering, or maybe those were sobs.

In the end, one hand closed tight around Sera's ankle. Not tight enough, not nearly tight enough, but Iron Bull still paused, making a disgusted little noise.

_Disgusted. With me?_

“Back away, Sera,” the Qunari said. “Run, and keep running, and I'll make sure the Viddasala hears about it when the time comes.”

Cole looked up desperately at Sera. She was looking down at him, her eyes shadowed. She was scared, she was outmatched, he was so big and so powerful and she didn't understand except she was afraid that she did. First Iron Bull, then who else? Who else could she trust? Maybe only herself.

She was considering the offer. He could see it behind her eyes. He was hurt and he would slow her down and she'd never liked him and she was scared and she didn't want to die...

With all of those thoughts and fears twining and tangling with his own, Cole wondered later if he really should have said what he did next. It was a selfish thing he said, but Cole was a little more human than he had been and sometimes being a little more human meant being a little more selfish.

“Please don't,” he begged. “Don't leave me.” He didn't want to die, either.

“Don't listen to it,” Iron Bull spoke up, over Cole's voice. “It doesn't have any place, under the Qun.”

And Sera, in that moment, was decided.

Cole saw her reach for the spare knife she kept in a sheathe at her back. If Iron Bull saw it, too, then he didn't react quickly enough to stop her, as Sera sprang forward and _blurred_. Not all of the thousand cuts that followed connected. But Cole smelled blood as some did.

More importantly, he felt the chain go slack.

Cole moved without entirely thinking consciously, once again his body taking over for the sake of rescuing the rest of him. He reached back, grabbed a hold of the chain, and tugged it towards him as much as he could. He gathered it up the best that he could, but the chain seemed to go on forever, and at last Cole struggled back to his feet and staggered on.

“Help,” he panted, around his bruised throat. He swallowed, tried to shout, but couldn't. “ _Help._ ” The sound of flesh meeting flesh. Sera crying out in pain. The stairs back down to the rest of the world were scant feet away, now. He wanted to help her, he had to help her, but what good could he do?

He could, perhaps, find help, if there was anyone left to give it.

Cole was just wobbling at the top of the stairs when something flew into him like a sack of dirt, sending him and it tumbling painfully down the stairs. No, not “it” - Sera. Iron Bull had thrown her away like so many worn out rags.

He tried to struggle up. It soon proved for the best that he hadn't. Heat, raw and roaring, soared over Cole's head and up the stairs. This time, Iron Bull cried out from just above them. This time, another voice spoke.

“ _Festis bei um canavarum.”_

“You have no idea, _bas-saarebas._.”

Dorian. Dorian Dorian _Dorian_. Cole looked up, and Dorian did not look down, because he was too busy glaring up the stairs at the Qunari. Iron Bull glared back, through the wall of fire that now barred his path there.

“You could come down here and drag this out,” Dorian said over the hungry crackle of the flames. “But from the way you've approached this so far, it seems that you still appreciate some need for stealth. So you must also appreciate that this wall of fire can't go unnoticed even by the idiot politicians here. People will be coming. Start now, and you might just have enough time to get away. After all, by now, I'm certain your Viddasala could use all the help she could get.”

It felt as though the air itself was holding its breath, the physical and the Fade and the Veil between all waiting to see what the dance between past and present and possibility would produce. For a long moment, the future was branching off in too many directions, and Cole was dizzy.

Or maybe that was the blood loss. His body was so unfortunately stubborn about certain things, these days.

Cole heard footsteps from the stairs up above, and whimpered, body tensing in anticipation of flight once more. It took him a moment longer to realize that the footsteps were growing softer, moving away. Iron Bull was moving away.

“This isn't over,” the Qunari called back, and they were the last words he would ever say to the three of them. Cole knew it, in that moment. They would never see Iron Bull again. They might see the body of a one-eyed Qunari, but it would never be the Iron Bull again.

It was this realization, at long last, that pushed Cole to tears once more. Even the pain pulsing through his wounded leg and bruised throat and battered body all together didn't quite equal the raw and bleeding pieces that felt as though they'd just been ripped out of him inside.

“ _Piss_ ,” Sera swore, with feeling. But she was alive. Cole felt her start to struggle up beside him. He wanted to do the same. He couldn't.

“ _Cole_ ,” Dorian gasped, his first word from his first breath in too many moments. He knelt down beside Cole, and Cole felt his friend reaching toward his leg.

_Was Dorian his friend?_

He tried to flinch away from Dorian's touch, shaking his head. His leg hurt so much, he didn't think he could bear another moment, another touch. He felt like he was burning to ashes, inside and out, he wanted someone to _help_ but he didn't want anyone _near_...

Dorian murmured a few words that vibrated in the air, twisting through the Fade. Cole was normally uneasy about being around Dorian when he was using his magic. Necromancers were not kind to creatures like him, whatever he was now. But this spell didn't sound like those spells did, and in the next moment, everything felt...very...

...peaceful.

“ _Shh_ ,” said Dorian, and Cole shushed. He still felt uncertain about a great many things, but Dorian seemed to be wearing a very green, very peaceful aura right now, and Cole was too tired to want to leave it at that moment.

There was still the matter of the grappling hook through his leg, its chain trailing away behind him like a very long tail. What Cole was fairly certain happened was that Dorian burned through the chain as close to his leg as he could manage. Then he and Sera went to work turning Cole onto his side, and Sera worked the hook free from the other side with swift, sure movements.

He bled a lot, after that. That meant he also choked on the liquid they tried to pour into his mouth – only because it was such a very familiar one by then did Cole recognize the syrupy sweet taste of a rejuvenation potion. Yet nothing could taste sweeter than the prospect of sleep. Dorian and Sera refused to grant it to him.

“Up you get, creepy.”

“Come now, Cole, we must get you somewhere safe.”

He wanted to help them help him stand. He wanted to lay down and never get up again. He wanted this not to have happened.

He wanted not to feel anything at all. The last time humanity had _hurt_ so much had been when Varric pressed Bianca into his hand and let him stare down the sights...

Dorian and Sera decided the matter for him while he wavered, heaving Cole upright and balancing him between them, one arm over one shoulder apiece. He felt them start walking, and knew at least that he wanted to help them do that much.

In the end, he slept instead. This time, they didn't wake him. Cole's last thought before the world fell to pieces was that he'd lost his hat.

* * *

In the end, if anyone could be trusted not to be secretly harboring Qunari agents, it was the admittedly tiny delegation from Tevinter. The agents of Red Jenny were less secure, but they were also all Sera's friends and that was enough for her. Dorian, meanwhile, knew that they were simply not in a position to turn down any halfway reliable allies right now.

One of the Jennies found Blackwall – Dorian still couldn't think of him as anyone else – and brought him to Dorian's rooms. Divine Victoria had been made aware of the wall of fireworks and fire, and dispatched one of her own agents to question them as to what had happened. There was only so much Dorian could tell them, of course, but he thought he could do a decent job of filling in the gaps.

The only one who could even possibly tell them everything was curled up on Dorian's bed, still mercifully unconscious, now safely bandaged up. Dorian didn't know what they were going to do when Cole woke up, only that the look he'd glimpsed in the boy's eyes wasn't one that just went away with a good night's sleep.

There wasn't much they could do while they waited for word. To go hunting for other Qunari agents would be to potentially inspire a panic. To go chasing after the Inquisitor would be to leave the palace unguarded. In the end, they only waited for a more concrete sign of what to do. Never had there been a more quiet or somber game of Wicked Grace. Sera didn't even join in, only sitting perched on Dorian's window seat and staring out at the grounds below with the air of a hungry owl. At last, one by one, everyone retired to their own corners of the room to bed down the best they could. The plush carpets of Halamshiral were hardly the worst places they'd been forced to sleep, and absolutely no one questioned Cole's right to the bed.

Tevinter bred light sleepers, as a rule. Heavy sleepers didn't often live long enough to breed. And since Dorian wound up sleeping on the floor in the shadow of the bed, he was the first to hear the springs creak as Cole stirred.

The soft, confused, _frightened_ little sounds he heard the boy make were expected, not to mention heart-wrenchingly familiar. But while Dorian was torn between whether or not to continue feigning sleep and give Cole a few moments alone to process what had happened, Cole took the matter out of his hands.

“It's all right, Dorian.”

Nothing for it, then. Dorian pushed himself laboriously up and into a sitting position, leaning his aching back against the bed. The fact that this was one of the better places he'd spent the night in the Inquisition's company was more a condemnation of the other places, after all.

Cole, meanwhile, had shifted so that his back pressed flat against the wall. He'd drawn his uninjured leg up to his chest, and especially without his hat he still looked so... _wounded_ and _lost,_ as he hadn't for so long. Dorian caught himself reaching out without meaning to, and only realized it when Cole flinched away, ducking his head.

Dorian, in turn, froze for a breathless moment. Then, moving slowly and gingerly, he folded his arms on top of the bed, instead, and rested his chin on top of them.

Wherever Iron Bull was now, Dorian hoped he was dying painfully.

“If you don't mind my saying, Cole,” Dorian said, just as quietly. “Things don't look all right. But, how are you feeling?”

“'Betrayed'.”

The word sounded strange on Cole's tongue, and then Dorian realized that Cole even looked surprised to say it. His pale eyes got that _look_ they still sometimes did, when the boy was seeing _in_ rather than _through._ Whatever he saw there, Dorian looked back without flinching.

He knew better than to think he needed to hide from his friends, anymore.

“It's a sharp word,” Cole carried on. “Barbs that burrow beneath your skin. You can feel them, as you move, and you try to pull them free but you only _bleed_ because they know where it hurts the most.” Dorian saw Cole's knuckles go even whiter as his hands tightened, around his knee and around his stomach. As though the boy were trying to hold pieces of himself together. And he _knew_ , he just _knew_ what Cole was going to remember next, even before the boy stumbled over the familiar words in a broken little voice.

It wasn't nearly enough time to prepare himself, though.

“ 'The thing is, sometimes the ones you love are also the ones who disappoint you the most. You think that if they love you, they should understand. They shouldn't want to hurt you. So you feel betrayed. You say things you can't ever take back.' “

Cole was looking at him almost hungrily, as though even now he sincerely believed that Dorian could personally explain all the agonizing intricacies of betrayal. Dorian tried, all the same, even if only to help him break the matter down into smaller pieces. “You can still ask me questions, Cole,” he prompted, as gently as he could without letting his voice break as well.

“Do you think he meant it? The things he said? I looked, I tried to look, but he was so empty inside.”

 _Fasta vaas_ , but Dorian could see fresh tears on Cole's cheeks, much too bright in the moonlight. Wherever Iron Bull was, Dorian hoped he wasn't dying too quickly. He had never seen the boy cry as much as he had tonight. Hadn't even been entirely sure he was capable of it, really.

“What did he say, Cole?” Dorian almost felt as though he was unreeling a fishing line, inch by inch, and maybe if he was _just_ careful enough he could at least catch some of the bigger issues out of the dark mire that had clearly been made of Cole's thoughts.

“He called me 'it'. He said I don't have a place. All this time I've been trying not to be an 'it', I want to be a 'me', I thought I was, and I had a place with the Inquisition but so did he...”

“You are not an 'it', Cole,” said Dorian firmly, maybe even a little more harshly than he should have. Without thinking, he'd sat up, even leaned forward a little in his insistence. “You are a boy who is also a spirit who happens to have appalling taste in hats and friends who will forgive you for it, regardless. And you _do_ have a place with the Inquisition...” Though of course they both knew that it would only last as long as the Inquisition did, which was looking to be an increasingly brief length of time. Dorian hastened on before either of them could dwell on that point. “...and yes, so did Bull. He, however, was foolish enough to cast it aside, in favor of the very people who left him 'empty inside'.”

Cole smiled. It was one of the briefest, shyest smiles Dorian had ever seen, as though he expected to be struck down again just for daring. “...I dropped my hat,” he said dolefully, reaching up to absently tug a strand of hair.

Dorian smiled back, trying for encouraging. “I doubt anyone is going to take it, Cole. Certainly not here.”

“I'm sorry. I know you wish Varric were here to talk with me instead.”

And then Dorian winced, because he had just been thinking that, right in that instant. He felt bad about it, another second and he would have tried to bury that thought where it belonged, but Cole could still be _alarmingly_ perceptive at the worst possible times.

“It's not that you're annoying me with this, Cole,” he said aloud. For a moment, he wondered if he should try and focus on keeping his thoughts clear instead. Then he remembered just what had apparently led to Cole being in this mess and state in the first place. “It's only that you've had...well. Something of a trying night, to say the least. And Varric has always seemed to know how to explain, whereas I always seem to leave you with more questions.”

“I don't mind. I like asking questions.”

“Just as well. I generally enjoy answering them. You know how much I enjoy showing off my dazzling wit and keen intellect.”

And just for a moment, Cole's smile was a little brighter, before he faltered once more under the weight of them. “How do you do it?” he asked, in barely more than a whisper. He stared at one tightly clenched hand, at the tangled bedsheets, at the bandage wrapped tightly around his leg. It would need to be changed soon. “How do you look at someone and let them look at you and talk to you and help you without wondering and worrying that they're just going to go away inside and hurt you instead?”

Dorian pressed a hand to his mouth, ducking his head to try and stifle the bitter, hysterical little laugh that bubbled up in his throat. It wasn't remotely funny, of course, nothing about the question or the feelings and memories it dug up in Dorian's mind and heart were funny. But sometimes, you had to laugh anyway, or else.

“Even if you like to ask questions, Cole, I'm afraid I might be the _least_ prepared to answer that one. What makes you think I can do even that much?”

“But I _know_ you feel that way, sometimes. When you look at the Inquisitor, or at me. You don't think we're going to hurt you. Even though you felt that way about the Iron Bull, you look at me now and you don't feel scared.”

Dorian's first impulse was to question just what about Cole was supposed to be frightening at the moment. His second thought was to actually stop and think for a second. “Are you frightened, Cole? When you look at me now?” He tried to sound understanding. He tired to sound anything but upset or offended. It was hard, however, because Dorian couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so _lost_ in quite this way.

Cole, in turn, just looked miserable. “I don't _know!_ I don't know if I _should!_ I've never been 'betrayed' before – before, I wasn't me, I was him, and after that no one noticed and then you noticed but you _cared_ , you _helped_ , like I wanted to. But so did the Iron Bull but then he just went away and there was only Hissrad and how do I know you won't decide to go away inside, too?”

 _Ah_.

Maybe it was better that he be here instead of Varric.

Dorian held out his hands, laying them both palm up on the bed between the two of them. It was just an offer, nothing more, though Cole still eyed his hands as warily as he might two bundles of deathroot.

“Look at me, Cole. Like I know you still can. Am I empty inside right now?”

Cole looked first at him, and then into him. Then hesitantly, he shook his head.

“When I say that I'm worried about you, you don't just have to just listen to my words, you can see the worry in my head, can't you?”

Cole nodded. So hesitantly, as though he were creeping up on a sleeping snake, he uncurled his arm from around his stomach, and inched his hand over to take gentle hold of one of Dorian's. Dorian, in turn, curled his finger's over the boy's, giving them a soft squeeze

“The fact remains, Cole, that...it's often impossible to know for certain that someone _won't_ decide to, to betray you. To go away inside. Even if they're kind _now_ , even if they care _now_ , the knowledge that they could stop at any moment is knowledge that's damnably hard to shake. I haven't found a way to stop doubting. At least not without feeling terribly anxious instead.” He sighed heavily, shoulders slumping just a little with the weight of the truth of his words. He almost wondered if he should say the words he said next, whether it might not be better to just leave Cole with these words of caution, but...no.

That wasn't the way, anymore. He knew that.

“I can't promise that no one will hurt you like this ever again. The world is a vast and frequently terrible place full of utterly selfish bastards. But one thing I also know now is that the world is also not devoid of people like you, who want to make it better. And I know that you're worth a dozen of those bastards any day. And I know that the people who won't betray you are worth a dozen of the people who will. Perhaps even more. I'm not saying you should trust everyone. Not everyone deserves it. But if you find someone who truly makes you _want_ to...it's still worth the risk. _They_ are still worth that risk. You certainly were.”

Dorian was still not a man naturally given to physical affection. Words were often easier. Words were often safer. That was part of the reason he and Cole had actually gotten on better than most, in fact. But everyone had their moments of weakness, and sometimes the best way to deal with moments of weakness was to have someone there to see them, and absolve them.

Cole didn't ask anything aloud, but when he finally laid down again, the way he shifted slightly but noticeably over towards Dorian's side of the bed was as clear as any question, and that slight gesture was worth infinitely more than its weight in gold. Dorian, in turn, only hesitated a moment before reaching out to brush his long fingers through the boy's unruly thatch of hair.

They stayed like that for a little while – Cole breathing a little more peacefully, until at last his eyes closed. Dorian hummed softly in encouragement, until at last the boy slept. Dorian followed suit not long after, feeling a little more at peace in turn.

Betrayal hurt like hells, there was no denying that. In a way, there was nothing that could possibly hurt worse.

But they both remembered that they still had people there to pick up the pieces, and so the pain would heal, and the risk was worth it to carry on.

* * *

When the Inquisitor and her chosen strikeforce returned in the morning, it was with the Inquisitor minus an arm and the team minus a Qunari.

None of the ones left behind asked. None of the ones who had gone offered answers. Someone had clearly already filled in the Inquisitor's team on the events of the night before, however, or at least Dorian couldn't think of any other way Varric could have known to stop and go looking for Cole's hat before they all met up again.

“Hey, kid,” the dwarf said gently in greeting, his gaze moving as though dragged on a winch to the fresh bandage around Cole's leg. Cole himself was sitting on a bench outside the tavern, while the others milled around standing. This meant he was actually at the right height for Varric to replace the hat in its proper place on Cole's head himself, and Cole smiled as he did so. “Heard you had a shitty night to end all shitty nights. How're you feeling?”

“I'm feeling better,” Cole replied. And Dorian knew that even if he didn't quite mean it yet, he would soon. 

**Author's Note:**

> The title is actually based on a line from OFF - "here nothing remains, except for our regrets." Except Iron Bull had no regrets, and hearing that line from Cole in-game was somehow even more chilling to me than the fact of the betrayal itself.
> 
> A part of me keeps thinking of this fic as the sequel to "Eventualities". A part of me really, really hopes it's not.


End file.
